{"id":3204,"date":"2013-04-04T10:11:46","date_gmt":"2013-04-04T15:11:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/?p=3204"},"modified":"2017-11-19T20:10:38","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T01:10:38","slug":"how-much-is-your-hockey-equipment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/?p=3204","title":{"rendered":"How much is your hockey equipment?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The recent flurry of snowy weather in Ottawa may tease stick-and-puck enthusiasts with just a few more days of shinny, but March has traditionally been the end of the minor hockey season. It is also the time when hockey parents look back and ask themselves, \u201cI paid how much to play Canada\u2019s game?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hockey can be a prohibitively expensive sport. Along with time commitment and health concerns, high equipment costs and league fees are reasons many give to explain Canada\u2019s declining number of minor hockey players.<\/p>\n

The key to saving money on hockey equipment is to determine when to buy it and what pieces to splurge on.<\/p>\n

A new, just off the production line, one-piece composite stick, such as the incoming CCM RBZ, retails for $299.99. The new Bauer Vapor APX2 skate, the hottest skate on the market and available for pre-order, is $849.99. Even by skimping over the high-end products, racking up over $1,000 for a full set of hockey equipment isn\u2019t out of the ordinary.<\/p>\n

FEW MANUFACTURERS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Buyers have to understand the hockey equipment market is an oligarchy. Bauer Performance Sports Ltd., Easton-Bell Sports and Rebook International Limited dominate the market. (CCM, one of the most well known brands, was acquired by Reebok in 2004.) There is little discrepancy in price between the different brands but certainly in models within those brands.<\/p>\n

But going cheap doesn\u2019t mean strapping on steak knives to your sneakers and calling it a day. There are full equipment kits for children just starting hockey available for less than $200, but it\u2019s generally not recommended.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a rule of thumb, it\u2019s better to go piece by piece,\u201d says Ralph MacLean, the manager of Valiquette\u2019s Source for Sports in Ottawa. \u201cThere\u2019s always something in the kit that does not fit. Always. Never fails.\u201d<\/p>\n

THE BUSINESS OF PRICE POINTS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another tip MacLean gives is to be wary of what you should spend most of your money on. The most important pieces are helmet and skates. If they don\u2019t fit properly, it may hinder a child\u2019s hockey development or cause injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cI compare hockey gloves to buying a car,\u201d says MacLean. \u201cIt\u2019s the Cadillac and you\u2019ll always tend to spend money on hockey gloves [to show off]\u2026 when they should be spending the extra money on the skates and helmet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hockey equipment prices are based on price points, a price set to keep the demand high. In the past, skates have only been available at two or three prices, but with a wider selection of equipment than before, it allows for more price points.<\/p>\n

Bauer\u2019s \u201cA Fit for Every Player\u201d campaign was designed to give consumers a wider breadth of products. Bauer has three skate models, Supreme, Vapor and Nexus, and within each model there are five or six different price points.<\/ins><\/p>\n

\u201cIn most cases, the price points have been <\/ins>around for awhile and are somewhat dictated by the marketplace,\u201d says Craig Desjardins, the general manager of equipment at Bauer. \u201cThe reality is, we fully understand that there\u2019s different levels of play.\u201d For the most part, the price points have not changed over the past 15 years, says Desjardins.<\/p>\n

Nexus, Bauer\u2019s newest line, comes in five different models, all at different price points. Bauer\u2019s wide selection, as well as its emphasis on research and development, has pushed other brands off the shelf. More than half the players in the NHL wear Bauer skates. MacLean no longer stocks Easton skates on his shelves anymore.<\/p>\n

PRODUCTION CYCLE AND SALES<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hockey sticks, of which MacLean estimates he sells around 3,000 per year, are <\/ins>the most widely purchased hockey equipment because of the relatively short shelf life. There are many more price points for sticks than there are for other pieces of equipment.<\/p>\n

\u201c$179 is the rule of thumb [for price points in sticks],\u201d says MacLean. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t sell. People will jump from $159 to $199, but $179 is in the middle of nowhere. Although sticks usually come at price points in $20 increments, the quality between a $159 stick and a $199 stick is large enough for people to splurge on the $199.<\/p>\n

New models of hockey equipment are usually released in early summer and put in production for two years. Once a stick is in its second year of release, it becomes much cheaper, usually by a third of the price, going from $299 to $199. And, unlike old wood sticks, composite sticks don\u2019t deteriorate, meaning that even if the stick has been on the shelf for more than five years, it will still feel like a brand new stick.<\/p>\n

\u201cApril 15 is usually our target date to launch,\u201d says Desjardins. \u201cEither you have a lot of leagues ending or summer hockey\u2019s about to begin. As you get back to school, you have that focal action available at the marketplace.\u201d<\/p>\n

SALES IN EVERY SEASON<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are no \u201csummer sales\u201d when it comes to hockey equipment. Sales are usually determined store to store, not by season.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tend to sell the most from the second week of August right through the whole month of September, and then again from December 10 right through to the end of January,\u201d says MacLean. August and September coincide with the start of the minor hockey season, while December and January is usually the time when elite players often invest in a new pair of skates. Because of the high traffic, it\u2019s when MacLean has most of his sales.<\/p>\n

Like any business, the hockey equipment market has had to adapt to online shopping. \u201cThere\u2019s been a big discrepancy in pricing, for a number of years, between Canada and the U.S.,\u201d says MacLean. In the past, due to Canada\u2019s taxes, hockey equipment was cheaper in the U.S. Many Canadians were buying equipment online from American sites and getting it shipped to the border where they could pick it up, saving them sales tax in the process. That practice will likely soon by changing.<\/p>\n

On March 21, the federal government announced in its 2013 budget that tariffs would be taken off hockey equipment. Though the change is unlikely to affect retail prices for hockey equipment, it\u2019s still too early to see what impact will have.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The recent flurry of snowy weather in Ottawa may tease stick-and-puck enthusiasts with just a few more days of shinny,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[74,75,76,73,72,77],"class_list":["post-3204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-finanice-2013","tag-bauer","tag-ccm","tag-easton-bell","tag-hockey-equipment-costs","tag-jason-chen","tag-reebok"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3204"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3204\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4502,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3204\/revisions\/4502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cusjc.ca\/ottawainsight\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}